Artists find Groningen light in the MOW Museum

Yes, beautiful, how Antje Veldstra in prints such as ‘Rimpeling’ and ‘Schittering’ lets the sunlight reflect over the Wad. She really catches the light in the bright white shimmers of her woodcuts. Or take the photos of Pim Benus, in which he very subtly captures a sunbeam on a shiny gold wind vane during a misty twilight.

And be surprised by the collages of Suzanne Hartmans. If you walk past such a wall object, it suddenly changes color. For example, Hartmans places a pattern of woods that are green on one side on a white background. If you move past it, the green appears, or – in the other direction – it disappears again. This is how Hartmans plays with light and movement.

With the exhibition ‘Gronings light’, the MOW Museum wanted something different from the ‘standard images’ of the province with rapeseed fields and black fields, says communication officer Hesther Bakker. And that worked out well. Painters see the light in expressive landscapes, in poetic fields of color or in a few abstract bands.

Anita Oosterloo found the light in old Groningen churches. Small nooks and crannies in her photos turn into abstract, graphic images full of light, shadow and intermediate gray areas. In this way, all kinds of facets of the Groningen light are discussed.

A gruesome death for sodomy

Along the way, the exhibition makes several turns. For example, Michiel Teeuw, who graduated from Minerva last year, discusses the story of Rudolf van Mepsche in Faan in his video installation. This Groningen esquire sentenced 22 young men to a gruesome death for sodomy 300 years ago. According to legend, this would explain why the sky sometimes turns (blood) red. In this way, Teeuw gives a deepening layer to Groningen light and connects it to a current theme about gender and orientation.

John Dilling made a painting of a hydrogen molecule, H2. The two fused atomic spheres with reflections and repetitions of smaller spheres are somewhat like a mathematical fractal. Elsewhere are photos by Mirjam Offringa of modern windmills and industry. In doing so, she records the changed Groningen landscape.

The aspect of light does not actually appear in these works. With this, the museum also wants to raise a topic such as energy transition and sustainability and thus initiate a conversation about the consequences for the people of Groningen. However, it is far from the main theme.

There are also various spatial objects and installations that deviate. Lea Laarakker still connects an artwork of dried pods on a silk cushion with the Groningen light through the well-known stanza of Ede Staal: ”t Het never so dark west, … (etc.)’.

Installation of cardboard boxes

Ina Fekken built an installation from more than a hundred cardboard boxes with lasered drawing fragments of birds and small peepholes in it. You can still discover all sorts of things in such hiding places, but no light.

Hesther Bakker explains that a previous exhibition of some artists was canceled due to corona. Because they take the Groningen countryside as a starting point, they do coincide in the whole of light, air and landscape that the museum wants to draw attention to here.

In themselves, these installations are also interesting and captivating. But within the central theme of light in Groningen, they have a confusing effect and ensure that the exhibition starts to hover too much on different ideas.